Madrid given another derby day as Real match Atlético in Champions League | Sid Lowe

FULL TIME: Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (agg 1-0)

But it matters not! City can’t get back upfield again, and the referee blows his whistle! Real Madrid have made their 14th European Cup final! They’ll face their city rivals Atletico in Milan later this month, a repeat of the 2014 final. You can’t say they didn’t deserve it tonight: they carried the greater attacking threat, and on another day would have scored a couple more. City by comparison didn’t get a single effort on target. On the other hand, it took a deflected goal to beat them, they hung in there, refusing to buckle under pressure, and Sergio Aguero very nearly silenced the Bernabeu with a stunning effort during the game’s last knockings. But on the whole City didn’t do enough. Ah well, they’re making incremental progress, and there’s always next year. A good night for Pep Guardiola, if nothing else.

Manchester City suffer as Fernando own goal hands semi-final to Real Madrid

90 min +2: The assistant ref holds up four minutes. The first two are spent rubbing Keylor Navas’s leg; he’s down having picked up an injury while making that clearance. There will be more than four extra minutes, I’ll be bound.

90 min: Aguero has been quiet tonight, but suddenly he’s come alive. Perhaps too late. He chases a long ball down the left. Pepe misreads the bounce on the edge of the box, forcing his keeper to come out and batter the ball into the stand.

89 min: The Bernabeu falls silent for a couple of seconds as Aguero, in a little space down the inside-left channel, lashes a screaming dipper up and down towards the top right. He’s got Keylor Navas beaten, but the ball whistles inches over the bar and onto the top netting. The City fans celebrate, before swallowing their cheers. Real fans are too shocked to respond. For a moment, an eerie quiet descended on the Bernabeu. City so close to a spectacular goal, so close to the final!

86 min: Bale is blocked fairly obviously by Otamendi as he bombs down the left. The referee, perhaps wondering whether he should even the decisions up a little bit, doesn’t give the free kick. The home fans, plus Zinedine Zidane on the touchline, aren’t best impressed.

84 min: De Bruyne takes the free kick. It’s practically a corner, so why he tries to catch Keylor Navas out at his near post is anyone’s guess. His effort to curl it directly into the bottom left would have been parried clear had it been on target, which it wasn’t, the side netting rippling harmlessly. A waste of a good chance. Real should be down to ten for the remainder, mind.

83 min: Sterling dribbles along an intricate route down the left. Near the corner flag, Lucas Vazquez slides in and upends his man. Yellow, but that should have been a straight red card: the Real man was out of control and planted his studs on Sterling’s shin. A potential leg-breaker. Thankfully Sterling will be OK.

82 min: It’s Sterling versus Carvajal again. This time he earns a yard, and has a chance to loop a cross into the centre. But there’s nobody other than Iheanacho in the middle. Real are sitting back, inviting pressure, but City haven’t responded to the come-on yet. They need to start throwing men forward.

77 min: Lucas Vazquez dances down the right. His shot isn’t up to much. Meanwhile Fernandinho slides in on Kroos, who doesn’t like the challenge. The pair rub eyebrows in the muscular style. The referee gives both of them a bollocking, nothing more. Given that he’d initially misidentified Fernandinho for De Bruyne, he probably wasn’t arguing from a position of absolute authority.

76 min: Aguero bursts down the inside-left channel and looks to have been checked by Ramos, but he’s not getting the free kick. City are beginning to edge forward a little bit. Real have had all the chances, but this is still on a knife-edge.

75 min: Quite a few whistles ping around the Bernabeu as City stroke it around the middle while Real sit deep, making sure to keep a hold of what they’ve got. It looks like they might have started to think about how close they are to the final, which would be good news for City. The away fans singing Blue Moon again. Nerves pinging around the famous old stadium.

70 min: A little space for Sterling out on the left. He dribbles with pace and purpose towards the Real box, before fizzing low into the middle, where Aguero waits to shoot. Ramos slides in to put a stop to City’s plans. But that is a little better from City, who still just need the one goal. Might all those missed chances start playing on Madrid minds?

69 min: The thoroughly ineffectual Jesus Navas is replaced by the excellent Kelechi Iheanacho. Here’s Kevin Wilson: “Film nerd comment (but slightly football related), but Silvana Mangano was married to Dino Di Laurentiis, film producer and uncle of the former Napoli chairman. You could do worse than watch Pasolini’s Teorema, where she plays the mother of a bourgeois family whose existence is unsettled by Terence Stamp’s Angel/Devil drifter.”

REAL HIT THE WOODWORK!

64 min: The corner’s whipped into the box. Bale rises, 12 yards out, and plants a header towards the top right. He’s so unlucky: the header twangs off the underside of the bar and out! Lucas Vazquez tries to keep the move alive by chipping back into the centre from the right. Ronaldo is free, six yards out, and catches the ball with both hands before spiking it down and over the line! It’s the height of absurdity, but he’s not booked for his cheek because he was miles offside anyway. A cheeky wink to the referee, and we move on.

Ronaldo catches the ball and throws it into the back of the net. Photograph: Paul Hanna/Reuters

63 min: Ronaldo picks up a loose ball, 25 yards from goal. He drops a shoulder to move to the right of the D. His shot takes a walloping deflection off Clichy, looping over a stranded Hart and just wide left of the unguarded goal. Corner. From which...

59 min: Lucas Vazquez slides a ball down City’s always-wide-open inside-right channel. Ronaldo opens his legs and, from the edge of the box, slaps a low and hard effort towards the bottom right. Hart smothers brilliantly. City are under all sorts of pressure here. Their best bet? Hang on, hang on, hang on, and hope Real begin to get nervous as they get ever closer towards the final with just a one-goal lead to hang onto.

55 min: City’s defence has, to a man, fallen asleep. Carvajal races after a long ball down the right. He loops a cross into the centre for Ronaldo. It’s a bit high, but Ronaldo still gets his head on it, sending the ball straight at Hart. City are very much second best at the moment, but they’re still just the one goal behind. And it only takes a minute.

53 min: How on earth are Real not two goals up? Bale drops deep down the right before chipping a delicious reverse pass down the channel to release Modric into the box. He’s one on one with Hart! He has to score, but allows an over-elaborate dink towards the top right to be smothered by the star-jumping keeper. What a miss! What a save! What a non-event the resulting corner turns out to be!

51 min: Half-chances at either end. First De Bruyne, just inside the Real box, takes an airshot at a ball sent down the right by Sagna. Then Jese powers down the right, tearing past Mangala, only to blooter miles over the bar when he reaches the edge of the City area.

50 min: Bale, deep on the right wing, launches a long, drooping, diagonal pass towards Ronaldo, who has broken clear down the middle. He connects with a volley on the left-hand edge of the City D, but not particularly well, and the ball harmlessly bobbles through to Hart. A better connection, though, and City were in a lot of spectacular trouble.

48 min: Real have come out with a view to putting this tie to bed quickly. Jese skips past Otamendi down the left and romps into a lot of space. His low cross is easily gathered by Hart at his near post. Jese should have done a lot better.

46 min: Hoo, City so nearly concede within 30 seconds of the restart. Kroos rakes a glorious diagonal pass to release Carvajal on the right. He hits a low, first-time ball into the six-yard box. Otamendi slides in to block, with Ronaldo waiting to sidefoot home in the simple style. As it turns out, the flag goes up for offside - both Carvajal and Ronaldo were ahead of the City back line - but that was close. The visitors have been woozy all night; they need to snap out of it quickly.

And we're off again!

So this is where we are: City were second best in the first half, doing quite a lot of wandering about, and yet they’re far from out of this. They just need a goal. They’ll go through on the away goals rule if this ends a score draw. But another Real goal will surely bury them. Just to clarify the Bale/Fernando goal/own goal situation: Bale certainly looked up as if to cross, and his hard cross-cum-shot took a deflection off the sliding defender to whip along an absurdly oscillating arc across the goal and into the top left. Fine margins, though. Does that clarify it? Hmm. Anyway, Real get the ball rolling for the second half.

Half-time entertainment: For those who enjoy a bit of history, here’s footage of Manchester City’s not-quite-epochal defeat by Fenerbahçe in 1968. It’s soundtracked to a version of El Negro Zumbón, which is a nice melodic touch.

But if events from 1968 are still too raw, here’s El Negro Zumbón being performed by Silvana Mangano in the 1951 Italian classic Anna.

HALF TIME: Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (agg 1-0)

A couple of added minutes and time for one last corner. It’s Real’s, out on the right. Ramos tries to get a head on it, but can’t, not quite. And that’s that for the first half. The goal that separates the sides has been taken off Bale by Uefa and credited to poor Fernando; turns out that deflection might not have been quite so slight after all. But this is mere admin: City have to find a second-half goal if they’re to keep their hopes of reaching a first Champions League final alive. It’ll be tense. No flipping!

44 min: De Bruyne turns down the middle of the park and slips a pass down the inside-left channel for Fernandinho, who cuts in from the flank and lashes a low shot inches wide of the left-hand post from the edge of the box. That’s the nearest City have come, and their best move too. Simple but highly effective.